


The Mouths of Babes

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2016 [94]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 15:05:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8290172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_prompt: "Stargate: Atlantis, John Sheppard, Trying to hide the damn Elf ears" and the 2016 Shoobie Monster Fest.An AU version of SPN 3x02 The Kids Aren't All Right. John Sheppard hunts changelings and learns a little more about himself.





	

John Sheppard wasn’t good with kids. For a lot of reasons. He’d only had one younger sibling, but never had to babysit him - that’s what nannies were for. And he’d never spent a lot of time around other people’s children, because everyone else’s families had nannies. In college, the only kids he saw were the offspring of non-traditional students, or at that one unfortunate incident at the on-campus child-development lab. As a soldier, children were a liability. Children underfoot were dangerous. John hadn’t counted on running into children while hunting monsters. He supposed he ought to have paid more attention to the hunt schedule, because he was getting ready to go undercover at a street fair loaded with children.

While everyone else was gearing up for each individual hunt, John was trying to catch up on years and years of lore that Vala had through personal experience, that Sam, Dean, and Lorne had because their childhoods were weird, that Rodney and Miko had through years of careful study. John was still trying to arrange himself some semblance of a schedule - PT, cardio, studying, weapons training - and trying to get his footing at this posting, so mostly he went where Lorne told him to go. Onto the bus. Off the bus. Into the bunker. Out of the bunker.

And now to the street fair. Lorne was dressed as he always was, but today he was playing a street magician, charming kids with sleight of hands, handing out origami toys, shaping balloons, and his clothes seemed more like a costume. John wouldn’t have been surprised if Lorne was using actual magic to pull off what he was doing, but he also wouldn’t have been surprised if Lorne was just pretty awesome at sleight of hand.

Miko was acting as Lorne’s assistant, crafting origami toys, handing Lorne balloons, and smiling at the kids. She was resplendent in a traditional kimono (she and Vala had been in the back bunk of the bus, grumbling and swearing for half an hour), and somehow she was getting by without her glasses. Vala was dressed as a Victorian flower girl, selling little nosegays and playing up her British accent, wandering up and down the street with a woven basket over her arm.

Dean and John were operating a bounce house while Sam and Rodney, who had drawn the proverbial long straws, were doing some actual investigating. John, who’d been on a lore binge for most of the bus ride and then panicked when he heard what their hunting pretexts were, hadn’t really digested the reality of this hunt. They were looking for changelings. The big concern, of course, was the stolen children. Human children were stolen, replaced by pale imitations, and those withered and died quickly.

The human children were stolen by fairies.

The reality of that didn’t hit home until the first child approached John. He was watching the pressure gauge for the bounce castle while Dean took tickets, rattled off the rules for playing on the bounce house. Kids liked him. He was energetic and cheerful, gave them high fives and fist-bumps. Running the equipment was safe, was easy.

And then, “Hey, mister.”

John spun around. Oh no. What should he say? What should he do? Was he supposed to crouch down so they were eye-level? Should he be friendly, like Dean, or authoritarian, like Rodney?

And then John got an actual look at the child, and his stomach turned. Where everyone else probably saw a cute little boy with storybook golden curls and big blue eyes, John could see what he really was. A monstrous little thing, grey and shriveled, with no face, just a gaping, tooth-filled mouth where a face would be.

John swallowed hard. The kid was a changeling. He had to tell Dean. He had to -

“Can I stay here and sit, Mister? While my sister plays. I’m tired.”

Before John could say yes or no, the kid plopped down on the grass at his feet and stared off into the distance, like a powered-down child android, statue-still and possibly not even breathing.

John stared at the kid for a moment, then glanced at Dean. He was busy packing down the tickets he’d collected in their little ticket box; there was a lull in the line of children. John cleared his throat, started toward him, glanced back to make sure the kid was still there.

“Dean -”

And then a woman said, “Dean?”

At the sound of his name, Dean turned, alert. The woman approaching them was lovely, slender, dark-haired, about Dean’s age. She had a boy with her, seven or eight, wearing a leather jacket and jeans.

John saw confusion cross Dean’s face, followed by recognition. “Lisa, right? The yoga instructor.”

“That’s right.” Lisa smiled. She had a full mouth, bright dark eyes, long lashes. “What brings you back to Cody?”

Dean straightened up, his expression easing, but John could still see the tension in his shoulders. “Just passing through. You know. With the carnival.” He jerked a thumb at the bounce house.

“What happened to the Marines?”

“Ah. Finished my hitch,” Dean said. He looked Lisa up and down. “You look great!”

“Thanks. Still teaching yoga. It helps.” Lisa smiled at him. “This is my son Ben, by the way.”

“Son,” Dean said. “You married? That’s nice.”

“Not married,” Lisa said easily.

Dean attempted to smile at Ben. “Hi, Ben. How old are you?” Whatever charm Dean had, Ben was immune to it.

“He’s turning eight today, actually,” Lisa said. “Thought we’d come have some fun, celebrate.”

“Bounce houses are for babies,” Ben said.

John was irrationally offended. He glanced over his shoulder again. The creepy kid was still there.

“I dunno,” Dean said. “When I was your age, they were a great place to meet chicks.”

Lisa raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

But Ben said, interested, “Really?”

Dean started to nod, caught Lisa’s disapproving gaze, and John had to do it. Had to intervene. He stepped forward, caught Dean’s arm.

“Sorry to break up the reunion, but Dean, I’m having a bit of a technical problem, could use your mechanic skills.” John flashed Lisa a tight smile.

“Nice to see you, Lisa,” Dean said. “Have fun at the bounce house, Ben.”

John yanked Dean away from the table. One missed ticket wasn’t going to ruin business.

But the kid was gone.

“Thanks for the rescue, man,” Dean began, but John shook his head.

“No, dammit. I saw one. One of the changelings,” John said. “He was sitting right here. Asked me if he could sit on the grass while his sister was in the bounce house.” He turned, scanned the screaming, jumping kids, but he didn’t see any girls with curly blonde hair.

Dean’s brow furrowed. “You _saw_ one of them?”

“I have the Sight, remember? It was why McKay picked me. Let’s go find Lorne. He can make a sketch of the kid.” John fished his cell phone out of his pocket.

“And then what?”

“And then we need to identify the kid.” John looked Dean up and down again. “Maybe your friend Lisa can help. Kid looked about Ben’s age.”

“Sure,” Dean said slowly. “But look, Lisa and I were a one-time thing, about eight, eight-and-a-half years ago.”

“Not eight years and nine months?” John asked. He was kidding, but Dean’s expression turned panicked.

Lorne abandoned his street magic show, leaving Kusanagi to keep making paper and balloon animals, and reported to the bounce house with his sketchbook on the double. John could only imagine what kind of field officer Lorne had been before he was separated from service, so efficient and organized and _everywhere_.

“I didn’t get a great look at his human face,” John admitted.

“Human face?” Dean asked.

“Changelings aren’t human.” John sighed, scratched the back of his neck absently. He wished, suddenly, that he had a hat. “I can see their real faces.”

“You can?”

“The Sight, remember?” Lorne said absently, sketching.

Dean frowned. “I thought that meant you were, you know, psychic.”

“No. But I can see the supernatural where others can’t. I can see demon faces too.” John peered at what Lorne had done. “No, his face was a little rounder.”

Lorne nodded, adjusted the lines of the child’s jaw.

“Okay. Let me call Rodney and the others. And turn the bounce house back over to Barry and the crew.” Dean fished his cell phone out of his pocket and walked away.

The actual bounce house crew, a bunch of teenagers, had been more than willing to let a couple of guys tag them out for a bit, a couple of guys with FBI badges who were looking to catch a child predator (true, but not the kind they thought).

Lorne showed John the sketch, and John nodded. “Yeah. That looks as close as I can remember. I’m not as good at faces as you are.”

“Well,” Lorne said, “given what you can see, I’m not surprised. Can you describe the actual changeling face to me, though? I know Sam will want a sketch for his journal, and I’ve never met anyone who has the Sight quite as strongly as you do. Well, no one human, at any rate.”

John, who’d been about to agree, paused, looked at Lorne. Lorne tapped one of his own ears knowingly, winked.

John swallowed. “How do you know?” How did Lorne know anything he knew?

“I knew your basics because I review every new team member’s personnel file,” Lorne said. “That gave me foundational facts, like your birthday and favorite food - you filled out a survey once, work-related. As for the rest, well.” He tapped his temple. “Got a lot of lore saved up here. And like you, I can see things no one else can.”

“You have the Sight?” John asked in a low voice. “Was one of your parents…?”

“One of the Fair Folk? No. As you can see, I don’t have the ears.”

John resisted the urge to cover his ears with his hands. Kids had made fun of him, when he was little.

“Like I said, there are spells for damn well near anything. Some of them are spoken. Some of them are written - like my tattoos. And some of them require a different focus. Carving spells into glass is a long and delicate process, but it’s worth the time, even if it leaves the surface a bit...scratchy. I’m about used to the sensation now, though, barely even notice it.” Lorne smiled at John. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone your secret.”

His glass eye. It was magical.

John couldn’t decide if that made Lorne more or less creepy.

He said, “My mother died when I was young. She kept her ears hidden - hats, headbands, scarves. She never had the chance to teach me anything about what I am.”

“Fairy and elven magic is a tricky thing,” Lorne admitted. “I could lend you some lore on the matter -”

John flinched at the thought of learning yet more lore. He’d thought doing his masters thesis on asymptotic combinatorics had been rough.

“Right.” Lorne smiled wryly. “So, describe the Changeling to me?”

 

*

“Seems like a sound plan to me,” Rodney said.

Dean groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Really?”

“You already have a rapport with her,” Miko said. “You’re the logical choice.”

Sam snorted. “ _History_ isn’t the same thing as _rapport_.”

“She didn’t seem to dislike you, though,” John said. “I mean, she was nice. And she did point out that she’s single.”

“She said she had no husband, not that she’s single.” Dean peered through his fingers at John, mouthed _traitor_. “She has a kid. Obviously he has a father.”

“A father who helped her conceive him eight, eight-and-a-half years ago,” John said serenely.

“What does that matter?” Vala asked.

Sam punched Dean in the arm. “Lisa? You mean yoga instructor Lisa?”

Lorne raised his eyebrows. “Are you implying what I think you’re implying?”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “What are you implying, Winchester the Younger?”

Vala’s eyes lit with glee. “Dean could be the child’s father!”

Dean groaned again.

“Talk to her,” Rodney said. “We need to identify this changeling child and any others who are also changelings.”

“Fine. I’ll do it. For the kids.” Dean stood up. “Let’s suit up, then, and go be Feds.”

John figured he’d hang back, watch Dean and Sam handle the majority of the interview. He didn’t want to mess things up, especially if talking to kids was involved. So when they arrived at Lisa’s house, a nice ranch-style suburban bungalow with a neatly-manicured lawn, John let everyone else file out of the car in front of him. Vala and Miko looked imposing in suits, when they so chose, but it was Dean who rang the doorbell.

“Dean,” Lisa said, polite but wary. “You remember where I live.”

“Lisa.” Dean cleared his throat.

“You clean up nice,” Lisa offered. “And you brought...friends.”

“I wasn’t completely honest earlier.” Dean held up his credentials. “I’m in town with my team, doing an investigation.”

“FBI?” Lisa echoed.

“Yes.”

“What does this have to do with me?” Lisa asked.

“We need your help with our investigation. Looking into a child predator. Received information he’s operating in the area.”

“I don’t know any child predators,” Lisa protested.

Dean unfolded a copy of Lorne’s sketch. “Do you recognize this child?”

Fear crossed Lisa’s face. “Yes. He’s in Ben’s class. Is he all right?”

“He’s fine for now,” Sam said, keeping his voice gentle and soothing. “But he may be the target, and we need to make sure he’s protected.”

“Come in,” Lisa said. “Ben’s playing video games in his room for now. He’ll be distracted for a while.”

Lisa’s house was warm and welcoming, all light colors, open floor plan, natural woods and soft carpets. She did well for herself as a yoga instructor. The pictures in the house were all of Lisa, her siblings and parents, and Ben through the years. Was it John’s imagination, or did Ben have eyes the same color as Dean’s?

“Can I get you agents anything to drink?” Lisa asked.

“No, thank you, we don’t mean to impose,” Lorne said. “We just need to identify this child as soon as possible. Do you know his address, his parents’ names, their phone numbers?”

“Absolutely.” Lisa went into the kitchen, came back with a notepad and pen, writing quickly. “Do you need me to call his parents?”

“No, we’ll handle it, but we appreciate your cooperation,” Miko said. She also sounded calm and soothing. Dean had a calm, soothing voice when necessary. Did Rodney and Vala have that skill? Obviously John needed to work on it.

Lisa tore the piece of paper off the notepad and handed it to Dean. Dean handed it to Lorne, who ducked away and immediately began making calls. Miko trailed after him.

“Thanks again,” Dean said. “We’ll leave you to your time with your family -”

“What about my son?” Lisa asked. “What do I need to do to keep him safe?”

Dean paused, cast Rodney a look.

Sam stepped in smoothly. “Keep to your normal routine, don’t do anything to stress him out. Make sure that you always know where he is and who he’s with. Has he had a flu shot?”

“Yes. Why?”

“The predator may be infecting target children with a flu-like virus to make them easier to take, when they’re on bed-rest at home. If your son exhibits any sudden signs of illness, call us, immediately.” Rodney handed her a business card.

“Thank you. Good luck on your case, Dean.”

“Take care, Lisa, you and Ben.”

And out the door they trooped, like ducklings in cheap suits.

Lorne and Miko were leaning against the hood of the car, hunched over their cell phones.

“What have we got?” Rodney asked.

“Got medical records on the blond kid John saw,” Lorne said. “We’re expanding a search now of local medical providers to see if any other kids came in with similar symptoms. We should probably get back to the bus.”

Dean glanced over his shoulder at Lisa’s house before everyone piled into the car. Sam had to nudge him to get into the car.

Lorne had literally magicked an extra space for all six of them to fit in the car. The concept was pretty cool, but sitting in the magic space was weird, and usually Lorne took it, but this time John landed in it, and he was uneasy. On the drive back to the bus, he thought of Nancy, how they’d talked about kids but never decided. What would he do if he found out he actually had a child? What would he do if he even suspected he had a child?

Back at the bus, everyone but Sam and Dean changed into comfortable clothes. In addition to there being a pretty fixed schedule of who was driving and navigating, there was a fixed schedule for on-call agents, i.e. two people who had to pose as agents during an ongoing investigation so, if needs be, the FBI could make an appearance when the team was otherwise occupied, like now, when John, Vala, Rodney, Lorne, and Miko were doing an all-night internet trawl to find out about the creepy blond boy - Williams, Tyson - and any other children like him in the local area. Sam and Dean were doing the lore crawl. All of them were sprawled across the furniture, laptops on. The soft susurration of typing was almost comforting, except John’s eyes were sore from the glare of the laptop screen, and he was pretty sure someone was staring at his ears. Every time he glanced over his shoulder, though, everyone else was focused on their laptops.

Sam said, “Hey, get this.”

Dean immediately craned his neck to peer at Sam’s laptop.

“Tyson Williams and about half a dozen other kids have gone sick in the last six weeks, once a week, usually on a Wednesday or a Thursday,” Sam said.

Rodney abandoned his laptop. “Did any of them die?”

“That’s the weird thing - none of them have,” Sam said. “The kids were hit pretty bad, and all of the parents report lethargy and flat affect, but the doctors are assuming that the kids are still just fatigued and recovering.”

“Send me that list of names,” Miko said, and Sam tapped rapidly at his laptop.

“Think this is a standard tithe, then?” Vala asked. “Do we need to find out who made a fairy trade and get it revoked?”

“No.” Miko shook her head. “This isn’t taking unblemished firstborn sons as a tithe - girls were taken, and also second and third children. But every single child’s mother has also fallen sick. Usually a couple of weeks after the children recover, but -”

“I’ve heard of this before.” Dean pushed his laptop aside and jumped to his feet, went tearing toward what was usually his bunk. He came back with the little leatherbound journal John recognized as the Winchester Family hunting journal. “Dad wrote about this one time. These changelings aren’t for tithe - they feed on synovial fluid. Changelings snatch the kids, take their place, feed on the mothers.”

“How long can a mother survive?” Rodney asked.

Dean flipped through the journal rapidly. Sam reached out, caught a page. “There. That looks like the thing John described for Lorne.”

“Your father really wasn’t that good at drawing, was he?” Vala asked.

Sam and Dean pinned her with looks.

“He has lovely handwriting, though.” Vala smiled sweetly.

“When was the first child kidnapped?” Miko asked.

John scanned his laptop. “The first kid fell sick four weeks ago, took about a week to recover, and then the mother started getting sick.”

Lorne frowned. “She doesn’t have a lot of time left.”

“What now? How do we know which child will be taken next?” Vala peered at the laptop screen too.

John glanced at Rodney, whose brow was furrowed in deep thought.

“Victimology,” Rodney said. “Run a profile on all the kids snatched, see what made them targets besides being kids, run that against all the kids in the town.” He tapped John, Sam, and Miko on the shoulder. “Run the numbers.”

John found running numbers comforting, partially because he was good at math. Math made sense, like flying once had (before gremlins could take down a helo far better than any enemy missile), and it was comforting. Make charts. Calculate the averages. This was how he’d expected monster hunting to be. Research. Data collection. Charts and graphs and samples. He remembered the first time he’d met Rodney, how handsome Rodney had been in his sleek suit, how professional, with his precise questions and his fancy datapad.

He’d never imagined he’d see Rodney like this, wearing jeans and an orange fleece jacket and tapping away at his laptop like a kid doing a World of Warcraft dungeon run. Rodney reached for his coffee, deftly slapped Vala’s hand away when she reached for his mug at the same time. He didn’t even have to look at her. Sam and Miko reached into the bag of red bean candies at the same time without blinking, without their hands tangling.

Dean and Lorne were dispatched to do recon on all of the houses where the children had gone missing.

“Got an age range,” John said, tapped his laptop, shot the numbers to Rodney.

“Thanks. I’m about done with the geographic profile.”

John lifted his head. “The what?”

“Dr. Reid taught me,” Rodney said. “To calculate a killer’s comfort zone.”

Sam hummed thoughtfully. “Cross-reference it with changeling lore. The comfort zone will be centered around the kind of place where a changeling can live.”

“Gender and racial profile is a no-go,” Miko said. “Too random. I’m moving on to socioeconomic status.”

“I’m moving on to schools,” John said.

Sam pushed aside his laptop and scooped up his father’s hunting journal. “Entrances to the fae realm are usually under hills, so anywhere that’s a hill could be an answer.”

Rodney nodded. “What about a construction site? With a big dirt mound?”

“Maybe,” Sam said. “Why?”

Rodney held up his datapad. “Because there’s a construction site right in the center of all of the kidnappings.” He reached for his cell phone, tapped one of the speed dial numbers, tapped his bluetooth earpiece. “Dean, get over to your old friend’s house right now. Because her house is one of the only houses in the killer’s comfort zone that hasn’t been hit yet.”

And then Sam’s cell phone started to ring. He glanced at the screen for a moment, then tapped his bluetooth piece. “Agent Winchester.” Then he paused. “Ms. Braden? Is Ben all right? Your neighbor’s boy? I’ll be right there with a couple of agents.” He tapped his bluetooth set as he heaved himself to his feet. “John, suit up. Let’s go.”

John scrambled back into his suit and was still trying to finger-comb his hair into some semblance of federal agency professionalism when the bus pulled up outside the address Lisa had given Sam. Dean and Lorne were already there, Lorne plying Lisa’s friend with tea and Dean asking her questions.

Sandra was a plump, motherly woman with curly dark hair and glasses. “He woke me up and said he was feeling sick, just like some of the other kids in town, so I went into the other room to call my ex - he’s a nurse - and I heard this sound like breaking glass, and when I went back into his room, he was gone.”

“Can you give me a recent picture of your son?” Dean asked. “So we can put out an Amber Alert.”

Sandra sniffled, fumbled with her phone. “Yeah. Who should I text it to?”

Lorne told her a number, and she nodded, sent the photo off. Lorne tapped at his phone a second later. John wondered if he’d really put out an Amber Alert.

“We need to take a look at your son’s room,” Sam said gently. Sandra nodded, and Lisa, who’d been hovering in the background, straightened up, beckoned to Sam to show him the way.

“Well?” Rodney demanded in John’s ear.

“Sam’s casing the kid’s room,” John said in a low voice. “This doesn’t fit the profile. They always send a replacement.”

And then a boy said, “Mommy?”

Everyone turned. The boy in the doorway was maybe six years old. He had Sandra’s brown curls and bright eyes and a stuffed dinosaur under one arm.

And he wasn’t human.

Sandra was off the couch and pulling the boy into her arms. “Zander! Baby! Where have you been? Where did you go?”

“I guess we can put a hold on the Amber Alert,” Dean said, and John said, “Maybe not.”

Zander’s expression went blank. He stuffed dinosaur fell from his arm, and he shuffled toward John.

“Papa?” he asked.

John was horrified, both by the creature’s face and the fact that the creature had called him _Papa_.

Sandra frowned, eyed John. “No, Zander, Daddy’s at work right now. You’ll see Daddy on Friday, remember?”

The child wrapped his arms around John’s waist and buried his face against John’s hip, humming happily.

He patted the kid’s head gingerly, fulling expecting to come away with a handful of ectoplasm or - or _something_.

“He might be delirious,” John offered. “Um, fever?”

Sandra looked amused. “You don’t have any children, do you?”

“No, ma’am.” John tugged on the kid’s shoulder. “Hey, buddy, you can let go now.” What was it Rodney was always saying when Vala tried to crawl into his lap or otherwise be inappropriately affectionate? “Personal space boundaries.”

Sam and Lisa returned, Sam’s expression grim. Sandra managed to peel Zander away from John, and she attempted to hug him, ask him where he’d gone, how he felt. She pressed a hand to his forehead. He tried to squirm back out of her arms.

John raised his eyebrows at Lorne. Lorne raised his eyebrows right back, and John lifted his chin at the changeling posing as Zander.

“We found him!” Sandra said, smiling up at Sam.

Lisa looked confused. She looked at Sam.

“But...the window was broken,” Lisa protested. “There was a bloody handprint on the windowsill -”

Sandra looked Zander up and down. “Baby, hold out your hands, let Mommy see if you’re hurt.”

“Papa,” Zander said, straining toward John.

Lisa cast John a questioning look.

John raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Really not my kid.”

“Of course not.” Sandra smoothed a hand over Zander’s hair, and it looked just like when Lorne did it when Vala or Miko felt bad. “He’s pretty sick. Let me try my ex again.”

“I’ll put a temporary fix in at the window,” Dean said, “and leave you to your evening.”

“Sorry for the false alarm,” Lisa said, smiling ruefully at Dean.

“Not a problem.” Dean sounded completely calm and professional.

Lorne had turned away, had his head down, one hand to his ear, talking softly on his bluetooth. Sam had his head down, was probably listening in.

Then John’s headset crackled to life.

Rodney said, “We can’t just leave that changeling there to feed on that woman. I hit up the Winchester Hunting Journal, and it’s not just changelings. Not just kids. There’s like - like a hive queen. We end the queen, we end the changelings. The queen will have the real kids.”

“The real kids?” Sam echoed. “Are they still alive?”

“She likes to feed on them, so -” Rodney swallowed hard.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” John said. “Sam, you stay here and help Dean fix the busted window, lay down some basic anti-fae protection. Lorne, you’re with me.”

“Where are we going?” Lorne asked.

“Under the hill.”

John supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised, when he and Lorne emerged onto the street and there was a gaggle of children waiting for him, all of them changelings, all of them wearing sweet and innocent-looking skins. He was still freaked out.

One of them reached out and slipped its hand into John’s with a horrifying smile and a sweetly-whispered _Papa_.

“Let’s go,” Lorne said, swallowing hard.

John nodded, and on foot they set out for the construction site, trailed by changelings.

It was easy to find the entrance to the changeling lair. Rodney was right - there was a giant mound of dirt at the construction site. The red dirt gleamed like blood in the moonlight. John and Lorne would have had to search to find the entrance, but the little changelings led them right to it. John gave a thought to how the red dirt was going to stain his suit, what it would do to Lorne’s, but then he crawled down the little tunnel where all the kids had gone (and hoped the dirt wouldn’t jam up his gun, his gun loaded with consecrated iron), and then he was -

In another world.

It was like time had stopped, or it stopped moving, or -

John remembered this sensation, from when his mother sang him lullabies. The ceiling of the cavern glittered with ice, with diamonds. The cages for the children were woven out of silvery tree roots. The ground was littered with fallen leaves like emeralds, garnets, citrines, jaspers, the colors of all seasons.

The children struggled and screamed, rattling at the bars of their cages, but there was no sound.

“What the hell?” Lorne looked shocked. Caught flat-footed. His usual composure was shattered.

The changelings dragged John toward the far end of the cavern, and what John had thought was a pile of rags straightened up, arranged itself into a giant changeling. To Lorne, it would have looked like a beautiful, ice-blonde woman in ethereal silks.

John felt bile rise in his throat.

“Look, mama,” said the little changeling clinging to John’s hand. “Papa!”

The giant changeling glided closer.

John didn’t think. He fired. He emptied an entire clip into the monster, and it screamed, staggered back. Hit the ground and started burning. The little changelings burst into flames.

As the last of the flames died, the magic faded. Screams exploded from the cages. The floor shook. The ceiling shook. The entire cavern shook.

“Get the cages open,” John snapped, but Lorne was already on it. He had an iron bullet in hand, and one touch of iron made the wood crumble to ash. John hoisted the kids up through the tunnel, and he didn’t look at their faces, didn’t count the number of them, just lifted and said, “Go, run!” over and over again. And then it was time for him and Lorne to go, and he told Lorne to go first, because he knew the only thing keeping the space stable was him.

And what was in his blood.

When John made it back to the surface, he saw the entire dirt hill give a giant shiver, then drop downward, as if into a sinkhole.

Lorne was kneeling in a circle of children, doling out hugs and head-pats and hand-squeezes.

Then and only then did John do a headcount. All children accounted for. John fired up his bluetooth.

“Rodney,” he said, “we found the kids. Send help.”

“What’s your twenty?” Rodney asked.

John told him.

“You all right?” Lorne asked, standing up.

“Yeah,” John said.

“Want me to buy you a hat?” Lorne asked. “You’d look pretty good in a fedora.”

“You think anyone will notice?” John smoothed a hand over one of his ears absently.

“I think it’s only a matter of time,” Lorne said.

“You think anyone else will care?” John thought of how Sam had been summoned like a demon, how Vala had once been possessed of a demon, how Dean was connected to angels, and Lorne had a magical glass eye. He wondered if there was anything more to Rodney and Miko.

Lorne raised his eyebrows. “In this crew? No.”

“How are we going to explain this to Rodney?”

“Let me handle it, or you tell him. Up to you.”

John thought of Rodney’s smile, of the intensity in his eyes when he was on the hunt, how calm Rodney had been during that first interview. “Handle it, please.”

Lorne smiled. “With pleasure.” He crouched back down to comfort some more children.

John stared at the collapsed dirt mound and remembered that feeling when he’d first stepped into that fae-space, and for a moment, he longed for childhood.


End file.
